Tag Archives: dirty

The MYCHANIC SK2 stool is the perfect accompaniment for anyone working around cars or in a shop. This padded rolling seat will become a vital shop tool for one and all, showcasing a variety of perfectly designed ideas in a Kelly Green stool. Let’s count the top seven ways that this SK2 shop stool excels!

MYCHANIC SK2 Stool

First off the SK2 stool is adjustable in height from 17” to 20” with a total of three seat heights. For our 6’1” frame, the full up 20” seat height was perfect. Remove four nuts and bolts and find the perfect height that suits you.

Second, we love the 3” urethane casters that roll right over the deep expansion cracks in our concrete floor. No more getting caught and having the stool fall over!

Third, the stool has a green holster on the side to hold any gun like device. Great for holding a drill or impact gun. So nice to have a place to securely hold these bulky tools.

Fourth, the bottom drawer can securely hold the tools that you most often are using on your job. No more trying to find that wrench or socket scattered around the shop floor.

Fifth, the tool caddy which rests on the top of the tool drawer has subtle indentations to hold it securely in place but you can easily pull it out to retrieve the tools. And that comfy handle also has a slot to hold a tablet or phone. So not only can you easily answer phone calls while working away, it’s easy to review your favorite repair video or on line shop manual while plugging away late at night.

MYCHANIC SK2 Kelly Green

Sixth, did I mention the folks at MYCHANIC used their Kelly Green coloring here on the rolling shop stool? It makes it easy to stand out and be visible when hunting around for your gear.

Seventh, the two sides of this rolling masterpiece have pockets (or bins) to hold critical pieces you might want ready access to. Great place to hold the nuts and bolts as you assemble or disassemble items.

The rolling SK2 stool is rated for 350 pounds, so go ahead and squat away on this rolling tool box. It will hold all you behemoths! The metal is powder coated to help keep it clean and rust free, allowing for years of easy ownership. It comes with a sweet two year warranty, but seriously it is hard to imagine this thing wearing out

We were given the SK2 to check out and gave it a whirl in the shop. We’ve been impressed with the design behind all the MYCHANIC products, like their Blade Multi Light. Check out their full lineup and you will be too. But be warned once you try out their tools, you’ll be sold and want more!

**Editorial content is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone.

Car owners realize that keeping their car clean is important but sometimes life gets in the way. Before you know it, a car interior can get grungy. But it is amazing how simple it can be to bring a car’s interior back to prime looks. A useful all purpose cleaner is Nonsense from Chemical Guys.

Nonsense

I have been a huge fan and user of Nonsense ever since the main guy behind Chemical Guys recommended it to me. It comes full strength and I usually get great results diluted to a 10:1 ratio. Nonsense pulls up the grime, leaves no sticky residue and doesn’t engulf the air with perfume odors. We love that it just does the job and gets great results.

Nonsense to the Test

These seats on a 2007 Toyota Camry are a soft fabric, but the light gray coloring will attract dirt quickly. I was wondering if the dirt was ground in too much, so I did a test strip first. A simple spray of the cloth, followed by a brisk scrubbing with a hand held brush and the results showed up!

A few more minutes of scrubbing and the whole car seat came back to new. I especially like the fact that the cloth maintained the original feel and shape with no soapy residue left behind.

Nonsense from Chemical Guys

Nonsense is part of a complete set of boutique car detailing products offered by Chemical Guys. You can also get it at their franchised retail stores- Detail Garage. It works on a variety of stains and never lets me down. For a super tough stain you could amp up the dilution level but 10:1 seems to be the perfect stain removal solution for me. Try some and let us know what you think!

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Wow! The first thing we recognized when checking out this MYCHANIC Detailing Rig is just how well designed it is. This is not just another one size first most water bucket but a purpose built detailer’s dream.

MYCHANIC

The MYCHANIC brand is an up and coming brand that is making a name for itself with well designed and professional grade materials. This detailing rig is no exception. Dressed out in their iconic Irish Green hue, this detailing rig is eye catching and handy. When offered a chance to try out this detailing rig, we jumped at the offer! They are based in Tennessee and we first met them at the AAPEX show in Las Vegas, NV last year.

Detailing Rig

The box arrived with the partially assembled detailing rig heavily padded and carefully wrapped. Order this and the FedEx man won’t be delivering a banged up, damaged product. When a company puts this much thought into how to package and ship it, you know this is a company you’ll like seeing more of.

This rig is made of powder coated heavy gauge metal pieces that were easy to assemble. It helps if you follow the instructions, but it was easy to assemble.

Detailing Rig Design

This detailing rig comes with FIVE heavy duty urethane casters with roller bearings. The fifth caster on the one end makes it that much harder for it tip over. Again, well engineered!

The bucket comes with a removable perforated bottom grid. You’ve probably seen endless variations on this guard, but the purpose is to let the dirt and grime that accumulates in the water bucket, settle below the grid and not in your bucket water. Many serious detailers use a two bucket method to further reduce the dirt accumulation in your wash water, but again this shows MYCHANIC’s attention to detail. The bucket rim includes two sets of cutouts to hang your favorite detailing product from.

Detailing Rig Components

The metal tray is a great place to store a few rags or tools while detailing your car. The side beverage holder is a great place to plop a drink, cuz’ we all know detailing is hard work. The padded seat is form fitting and provides for a comfortable pad for your aching butt. Best news is the seat pad is easily detachable, so it can serve as a kneeling pad or you could even plop your rear end even lower to the ground.

The detailing rig is a good height and will put you up along the belt line of the car if you need to do some serious work along the sides of the car. Plus with the bucket it is a great tool for general car washing duties.

Useful Detailing Rig

Of course this rig is not just reserved only for detailing duties. It would be a great overall mechanic seat when working on brakes, front end and other car parts. It is heavy duty and will stand up to some serious work duty. You can check out the seat here or look over their entire product lineup. They are good folks with some great ideas.

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It seems every year at the SEMA Show that more vendors pop up offering a headlight restoration product. From a few companies that offered a slew of detailing gear and compounds, now anybody with a selling spot had a miracle liquid cleaner for those pesky glazed over headlights.

Headlight history

Ever since the car manufacturers dropped using glass headlights, (anybody remember the sealed round H-4’s ?), which was initiated in 1983; the movement to plastic lenses has also created a market to repair the glazed, cloudy lenses. Originally many just paid their mechanic to swap in a new lens but that option gets more and more expensive. So now companies offer up various cleaners to restore the lens to like new condition.

Headlight restoration

Some sites will recommend toothpaste or even bug repellant to clean lenses but honestly these are short term fixes that mask the issue. Most legitimate cleaners work by smoothing out the rough surface and then polishing the plastic back to new. If the surface has really degraded, the repair process might need to actually start with sandpaper to get in all the deep crevices.

Headlight Restorer and Protectant from Chemical Guys

We had the chance to try out the Headlight Restorer and Protectant liquid from Chemical Guys, a leader in the boutique car detailing business. These guys (no pun intended) know their stuff and I was impressed with the outcome. Our test car was a 2010 Camry whose lenses have been exposed to some intense Arizona heat. The directions call for spreading 3 – 6 dots of Headlight Restorer and Protectant over a microfiber towel or applicator pad, then scrubbing the hazy headlight lens vigorously until the polish turns clear and finally wipe off residue with a clean microfiber towel and inspect work. Repeat as necessary.

The protectant part of this product is equally important because after cleaning and polishing the lens, the sun is still going to beat down on that plastic. That means you need some sort of UV resistant layer to help prolong the squeaky clean look. Chemical Guys uses sealant technology to preserve that look and keep the sun at bay.

We were impressed with the ease of use, no need for an electrical buffer, and the look is darn right impressive. We’ll keep an eye on the lenses and see how they hold up over the next few months, so subscribes to this blog and see how the product holds up in Arizona’s brutal heat.

PS Technically these electrical components are headlamps, and the light they emit are headlights but I don’t know anybody who calls them headlamps. Do you?

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Chenille Wash Mitts from Chemical Guys

Well it might not be earth shattering in the overall scope of car care, having a great wash mitt is certainly a big help. There are proponents of various wash devices, everything from the old school baby diaper to large spore sponges and microfiber towels. But this chenille wash mitt is a perfect fit.

A wash mitt is designed to go over your hand and allows you to deliver sudsy water to your car’s sheet metal. A mitt is definitely not a plastic scrubby or the back side of a squeegee. Mitts are primarily designed to bring the soap water to the car.

Chenille Wash Mitt

Chemical Guys, a boutique car detailing supplier, has a bright neon green chenille wash mitt made from microfiber. This chenille car wash mitt from Chemical Guys is packed with plush “noodles” to help hold a ton of soapy water when cleaning your ride. This allows for a scratch free way to wash your vehicle in record time. The mitt is made from a 70/30 blend of microfiber and is super plush. The mitt has an elastic cuff to make sure it stays put on your hand. The lime green color will help you easily find it amongst your cleaning supplies. I was amazed how much water this mitt can hold, you truly have to try it out yourselves.

You can always clean the microfiber mitt with hot water and soap and allow to dry. Of course since it is microfiber NEVER use a softener sheet or liquid!

Two Bucket Car Wash Method

I generally tout the two bucket method for car washing. Fill up one bucket with soapy water and the other can be tap water. Put your chenille car wash mitt in the soapy water and starting at the top of the car, starting letting that soapy water wash away the dirt. If you find a stubborn spot a little persuasion with the mitt will remove most contaminants. Take your now dirty mitt and rinse thoroughly in the clear tap water bucket. This allows the trapped dirt to go into that bucket instead of mixing into the soapy water. Now take your rinsed out mitt and dunk it into the soapy water and repeat. You now have mastered the two bucket method of car washing. Congratulations.

The Chenille Car Wash mitt is a great offering from Chemical Guys and should be in every detailer’s arsenal. Now go wash your car!

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Turtle Wax, a leader in the consumer car cleaning sector, has come out with a smashing lineup of products, including a Turtle Wax Waterless Wash and Wax, labeled Exterior 1. Often times car owners are faced with a dirty car and no access to water, hoses and buckets. This product allows a car to be cleaned with just the spray bottle of waterless cleaner.

Dirty Car

Our test car was a 1968 Camaro that unfortunately was parked outside when a sudden and dusty rain storm hit. The dust stayed after the rain went away and spotted the car immensely. Of course the green and silver paint really showed the Arizona dirt. So this presented the perfect opportunity to try out Turtle Wax’s product.

Applying Turtle Wax Waterless Wash Exterior 1

Now there is a technique to using these styles of cleaners. Get a clean microfiber cloth, the thicker the better, and fold the towel into quarters. That will give you four surfaces to work with on each side of the towel. As you spray on the Turtle Wax Exterior 1, cover one panel of the car, at a time.

You’ll see that the liquid will actually cover the panel and gently lifts up the dirt from the surface. Use an edge of the microfiber towel and gently drag it over the surface, with the cloth just barely touching the paint.

You do NOT want to rub hard or go around in circular motions. That creates a risk of the dreaded “swirls” in your paint. Just a gentle glide over the metal will grab the liquid and the dirt. On you next pass, just move the towel up an inch or so to expose a fresh, new swatch of material. Repeat until the whole panel is clean. Repeat the process over the entire car. Change out the quarter of the microfiber as each section gets dirty.

Exterior 1

The bottle contains 26 ounces and I used about two thirds on the whole Chevy. This include the glass and hubcaps.

The result was a clean car with no dirt or residue. If you find some tree sap or bird droppings on the car, just saturate the offending matter, and it will generally come off with a little prodding.

The scent is pleasing with a slight lemon hint. It comes out clear and did a great job eliminating the rain induced dirt.

This would be a great product for a road trip, where your hotel might be objecting to you dragging out buckets of soapy water in the garage. For those of you facing water shortages and car wash limits, this is a viable option as well. I know I’ll be utilizing this on my next road trip, how about you?

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When I first saw this COE set up as a hauler at SEMA at the Laid Back USA clothing booth I was blown away. And the more I looked and drooled, the more I liked!

Laid Back Hauler

The 47 GMC COE is a real deal patina featured hauler. The owner of Laid Back USA has a couple of woodies he uses as part of the promotional display but felt like he needed something authentic to haul the classics around in.

Enter this GMC truck that was converted into a car hauler in five short months, just ready for a premiere at our friends at Hot Rod’s Power Tour. I especially likedthe innards were modified to be reliable but the exterior was kept “as is” essentially.

Laid Back Clothing

And since Laid Back USA makes a line of classic car themed shirts, you just knew they had to make a shirt for their hauler right?

Encinitas, California is located just a short hop up the San Diego coast and offers a laid back surfer vibe. It is known not only for the surfing action and fish tacos, but also local one of a kind shops and furniture showrooms. But twice a month during the summer months the downtown streets come alive with a classic car show.

Thursdays are for Cruising

On the third Thursdays in the summer, from May through September, the Encinitas downtown group sponsors this car show along historic Pacific Coast Highway 101.

Along with the cars, bands can be heard performing and of course cars are always cruising the main drag. Plus many adjacent bars and restaurants are open with specials offered for the onlookers.

Classic Cars and Trucks

Now being a surfer city you just know Encinitas will dust off a few woodies for the show. But all varieties of classic cars and trucks come out for this once a month laid back car show.

Pacific Coast Highway

The car show spans the 101 Highway, from D to J Streets, along with some adjacent parking lots from cooperative shops. Portions of the Ppacific Coast Highway 101 hug the coastline of California.

Unlike other local events there is no signage reserving the on street parking for the classics so you often get a mix of classic Detroit Iron next to a plastic swoopy car! Awards are given out but there is more interest in the cars presented than the picks and awards.

Cruisers

Now parking for the public is a bit intense so if you go, plan on your own “cruising event” looking for a parking spot, but you’ll be rewarded with a sweet show. The season, alas, has ended for the Encinitas show, but you can relive the fun times with our pictures. Enjoy the snapshots and let us know your favorite.

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We decided to try the Sylvania Headlight Restoration Kit on a 2007 Camry. The Arizona sun has been hard on the headlights and the owner had tried once before to restore the headlights.

Now was the chance to again test the Sylvania Headlight Restoration Kit.

At last year’s SEMA and APEX shows, it seems that everybody had a headlight restoration kit. And if they didn’t have a kit, their older product could be used for that purpose too!!

Sylvania Headlight Restoration Kit

Sylvania’s kit comes with a liquid UV Block Clear Coat intended to keep the restoration from fading quickly. This sets them off from some of their competitors. The kit came with enough ample supplies to do the two headlights, sans towels and water. They give you a roll of rubber electrical tape to mask off nearby painted surfaces. We supplemented it with some blue “Painter’s Tape” as an extra caution.

Past Use of Headlight Restoration Kit

We have been really impressed with this headlight restoration kit, which we used before. We used it on a Toyota Sequoia always parked outside facing south into the harsh Arizona sun. It worked out perfectly and was still in factory fresh condition when we sold it two years ago.

Step 1 – Headlight Restoration Kit

The first step is to spray their Surface Applicator over the headlight surface. This helps remove discoloration and soften the UV coating.

Step 2 – Headlight Restoration Kit

The kit comes with three grades of sandpaper, 400-1000-2000 grit. Wet sand each headlight, starting with 400 and working up to the 2000 grit paper. They recommend sanding 2-5 minutes per headlight with each grit, using plenty of water and a circular motion. With water, the lens looked better, but as it dried the lens became opaque again.

Step 3 – Headlight Restoration Kit

Then use a tan Clarifying Compound to polish the lens.

This left the lens clean but with a slight haze after drying. Re-apply their surface activator to clean the lens one last time. Make sure the both lenses are dry before the last step.

At this point you might be wondering, what did you do to the headlights? as they may not look crystal clear. But fear not!

Step 4 – Headlight Restoration Kit

Use the UV Block Clear Coat to soak an edge of a folded paper towel and in one stroke wipe the top edge of the headlight. Continue to keep the edge moist and with a slight overlap, swipe the next portion of the headlight and repeat until all the lens is coated. Let dry for 4-6 hours to fully cure.

Final Outcome

Close up after all steps

Sylvania Advantage and Warranty

In talking with the Sylvania pros, they proudly note that this final clear coat is what sets them off from the competition. The coating helps to keep the headlight pristine and prevents aging again. They are so confident in their kit they offer a lifetime warranty, which probably isn’t too risky for them. Not only do they offer a great product, but how many people will keep their cars another 4-5 years after doing the headlights the first time?

It took about 45 minutes for both lenses and being careful to cover all the surface area of the headlights with the wet sandpaper. A close examination can show some scratches that didn’t come out, but from even a few feet they look like new. There was enough liquid to do both headlights and some surplus remained – which I used on a 2010 Camry that was showing signs of haze already. Guess the Arizona sun does a number on these headlights.

One of the joys of attending the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturerâ€™s Association) show is seeing the vendors.Â Nothing beats a chance to see in-person new products and hear from the company representatives directly what is â€œnew and improvedâ€.Â Thatâ€™s why we prowl not only the million square feet at the Las Vegas Convention Center for the SEMA show but attend the simultaneous and just as huge AAPEX (Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo) show at the Sands Convention Center and thatâ€™s where we found this great detailing brush.

ATLASTA

This ATLASTA SoftTip detailing brush at first blush, might seem too bulky or stiff for fine detail work on a car, but nothing could be farther from the truth.Â This brush feels like a natural extension of your hand and the TRIALOY filament bristles are like silk.

This â€œMade in the USAâ€ brush comes from a great pedigree of brushes, as it is part of the Paint Brush Corporation.Â Donâ€™t recognize that name?Â Not surprising, but if you ever have held a parts cleaning brush over a vat of carbon cleaning chemicals, odds are that brush was made by the Parts Brush Division of the Paint Brush Corporation.Â And the owner of this company wanted a quality detailing brush.Â So he used his years of expertise and product knowledge to design the ATLASTA SoftTip brush.

Brush in action

Car detailing brush from ATLASTA

This brush is hands down the best detailing brush we have ever used and trust us weâ€™ve used tons of brushes over the years.Â The ergonomic detailing brush measures just under ten inches and weighs a lightweight 4.3 ounces.Â We havenâ€™t found a spot on any of our cars that this brush canâ€™t reach and it removes any debris or dust without any risk of scratches or swirls.Â For more details on this detailing brush,Â click here.